Big Bang?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 05/10/2005, at 7:36 AM, malignd at aol.com wrote:

>> Sorry to have to correct you again, but it certainly meant something 
>> to Charles Darwin:
>
> It meant nothing to Darwin's science.  Which is the point.

I think you'll find it did. Darwin, in the light of his scientific 
theories, specifically distinguishes between atheism and agnosticism. 
It's not that he declared himself to be the one or the other that's 
important; it's the fact that he made the distinction.

It's just as easy to relabel "God" an "origin", or "religious zealotry" 
as the decision to disregard the entire notion of athesim (and any 
other alternative belief systems) as too absurd to waste time on, 
without any violation of logic or language whatsoever.

The "we're right, they're wrong" rhetoric is just as ugly whichever 
direction it comes from.

best

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jbor at bigpond.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 22:04:15 +1000
> Subject: Re: Big Bang?
>
>   On 04/10/2005, at 2:32 PM, David Casseres wrote: 
>  
> > I guess it's "agnosticism," but that's a category 
> > invented by deists. It means nothing to science. 
>  
>  Sorry to have to correct you again, but it certainly meant something 
> to Charles Darwin: 
>  
>  [...] In 1879 a letter came asking if he believed in God, and if 
> theism and evolution were compatible. He replied that a man "can be an 
> ardent Theist and an evolutionist", citing Charles Kingsley and Asa 
> Gray as examples, and for himself, he had "never been an Atheist in 
> the sense of denying the existence of a God". He added that "I think 
> that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, 
> that an Agnostic would be a more correct description of my state of 
> mind." [...] 
>  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin%27s_views_on_religion 
>  
> Interesting information, well worth a look. 
>  
> best 
>  
>
>